


you were my home

by jinrou



Category: K-pop, SHINee
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Cheating, Heavy Angst, M/M, Post-Break Up, i don't know how to tag things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinrou/pseuds/jinrou
Summary: This is how they fight; this is how they fall apart.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the Just Kiss 2017 fest! 
> 
> For prompt: 20. the road home.

“Just say something, do anything!” Jonghyun yells, fists balled up tight.

“What do you want me to say?” Jinki replies, blinking quickly, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Anything!! Just — anything, Jinki,” Jonghyun voices drops and he feels utterly helpless.

“I just want you happy,” Jinki says, equally soft.

“But I’m not.”

The words drop from Jonghyun’s mouth before he can stop them, and he shuts his mouth, and then his eyes, before the tears trace their way down his cheeks.

 

That’s how they fight; that’s how they fall apart.

Jonghyun is full of loud words and splintered voices, eyes sparkling with tears of rage, hands balled up tight.

Jinki goes quiet and doesn’t fight back, fingers busy with the ends of his too long sleeves, the hem of his jumper, Jonghyun’s rings when Jonghyun lets him touch them during a fight — but he’s always quiet. He only ever says (asks), “What do you want? I just want you happy.”

And it’s not enough.

“Do you even love me?” Jonghyun says, voice dangerously low, face already wet, and when Jinki swallows before he answers, Jonghyun feels his heart fracture further.

“Of course.”

“Are _you_ happy?”

The pause this time is longer and loaded heavier than a gun.

“Yes,” Jinki says finally, but Jonghyun doesn’t even have to open his eyes to know it’s a lie.

 

The way home to Jinki used to be easy.

It used to be tracing his fingertips up Jinki’s ribs, watching him shiver (in pleasure? anticipation? it was hard to tell) or reaching across the sofa to lace their fingers together as they watched another Shin Sekyung drama.

(“She’s so pretty.”  
“Yeah, she is.”  
“But don’t worry, you’re prettier.”  
“…Thanks, I think.”)

It used to be unlocking the apartment door, toeing off his sneakers and dropping his keys in the dish on top of the shoe cabinet before nudging open the door to Jinki’s study and dropping a kiss on an exposed collarbone.

(“Honey, I’m home.”  
“Welcome back, love.”)

It used to be sitting next to each other in that fateful music composition class, unfailingly asking him the time halfway through class every week before eventually cracking.

(“Sorry to bother you, but—“  
“It’s 11:37, Jonghyun-sshi. Probably time to get a watch.”  
“I beg to differ. I think it’s — it’s time foryoutocomeonadatewithme.”  
“…Pardon?”  
“…Would you like to get coffee after class?”  
“…I’d — I’d love to.”)

Now, home is a dark, closed door to Jinki’s study, his keys missing from the dish and dinner sometimes-sometimes-not on the counter.

It’s curling on the sofa alone (or with Roo or Songdam if she can be persuaded to come over to make the apartment feel marginally less empty).

Home now is loud, tense shouting (on his side) and low, helpless replies (on JInki’s) and—

 

Jonghyun sucks Minho off in the storeroom after he closes the deal he’s been working on for a few months now. He’s high off the win and Minho had raised an eyebrow when Jonghyun had brandished the signed contract in the office, and Jonghyun had taken it both as an offer and a challenge.

Kibum slaps him across the face when he finds out.

“You have no self-respect,” he says, biting the words out, and it should hurt, but Jonghyun can’t feel the sting when he looks over Kibum’s shoulder to Jinki’s carefully blank face.

“You’re a piece of shit,” Kibum hisses and turns away. “Let’s go, Jinki.”

 _You know nothing about us_ , Jonghyun wants to shout, but the lead ball in his stomach prevents that, and the scrunched contract in his hand doesn’t even lift his spirits a fraction. It digs a bit deeper when Jonghyun knows that he and Kibum had been friends for years longer, and — _you’re meant to be on my side_.

“I’m disappointed, Jonghyun,” Jinki whispers as he and Kibum push past to leave the apartment, and that’s all it takes for the tears to spill and the breath to rush from his lungs.

The final click of the door sends Jonghyun to his knees, and he thinks he’s screaming and sobbing, hating himself with every fibre of his being, fingers scratching fruitlessly at the floor, but honestly? He’s not sure of anything.

 

“You fucked up,” Heechul says as Jonghyun curls up further on Heechul’s armchair. “You really fucking fucked up.”

“I know,” Jonghyun rasps out, throat sore and eyes swollen and tired. He had called in sick and Minho had sent a worried text, and Jonghyun had managed to text Heechul (“i fucked up, i’m coming over.”) before turning his phone off and dropping it into the laundry basket.

“You have to apologise and explain if you want him to forgive you,” Hankyung says softly, pushing a cup of warm tea into his hands.

Hankyung sits beside Heechul and tucks his toes under Heechul’s thigh, who half heartedly protests before he rests his arm on Hankyung’s knee.

Jonghyun watches them and wonders — _when did we stop being like that?_

“To be honest…” Jonghyun stares into his cup and lets the steam envelope his face before he can continue. “I’m not sure I want him to.”

“Why?” Hankyung asks plainly. “Do you still love him?”

“If you don’t wanna be in a relationship with him, just tell him. Don’t be a coward,” Heechul adds.

“I don’t know if I want to be,” Jonghyun says, and drops his head onto his knees, arms tightening.

The thing is — Jinki had always been all he’d ever known. Not his first relationship, but certainly his first love. And everything had felt so easy and natural together — the last five years (bar the last) had been a dream.

“You don’t want him to forgive you, but you don’t want to break up with him,” Heechul clarifies, and Jonghyun pauses, then nods.

“Jonghyun, you’re a fucking idiot. And a coward. Just talk to him.”

Jonghyun sinks further into the sofa with each word.

“I can’t. I've tried. Everytime I do, he just says he wants me to be happy, but I’m not. I don’t know how to be with him.”

“You’re making this harder than it needs to be,” Hankyung says, and he can feel the cup being pried out of his hands before he’s enclosed in a hug. “You were happy before, what changed?”

Jonghyun swallows thickly, his tears soaking into Hankyung’s sweater.

“I don’t know,” he manages to get out but that’s a lie.

He knows exactly what changed — _us_.

 

One of his favourite memories is the beach trip they’d taken maybe two years ago, before things had started going south.

Everyone had been there — Kibum, Heechul, Hankyung, Sungmin, Sooyoung, Donghae, Jessica, Krystal, and he thinks Hyukjae and Hyoyeon had dropped in a bit too.

They’d spent the day frolicking in the waves, burying each other in the sand and playing a few rounds of volleyball. During the obligatory post-lunch nap, Jinki had rolled over and poked Jonghyun until he’d reluctantly lifted the towel from his face.

“Let’s go exploring,” Jinki had said, and Jonghyun had never been able to say no to that smile.

They’d ended up among the rockpools, the cliffs surrounding them as Jonghyun knelt and cooed at the little fish and sea urchins. He’d stick his hand in a pool and watch the fish dart around them, the adventurous ones coming to play amongst his fingers, and he had laughed at the sensation.

“Come on, let’s keep going,” Jinki said, pulling Jonghyun up, and Jonghyun obliged, because where Jinki went, Jonghyun would follow, even if it was to the ends of the Earth and back.

Jinki ended up pulling them behind a big rock (“Igneous type,” Sungmin would probably say, whatever that meant, fingers splayed) out of the view of the others, the stone warm against Jonghyun’s back as Jinki hugged him close.

“I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” Jinki said into Jonghyun’s hair before dipping his head and kissing Jonghyun firmly.

Jonghyun gasped into in, his fingers sinking into JInki’s hips and pulling him closer, feeling how much Jinki wanted it through his board shorts.

They ended up stroking each other off, Jinki’s hand tight around both of them towards the end, and the release was fast and satisfying.

“We should probably wash off,” Jonghyun said, laughing breathlessly as Jinki licked a tender spot on his neck. He could feel the cum drying on his stomach, getting sticky and a bit uncomfortable.

“We should,” Jinki said ruefully, and bites hard enough to make Jonghyun gasp. “But I don’t want to. If I could stay here with you forever, I’d be happy.”

Jonghyun felt his heart stutter in his chest and blinked once, then three times to make sure he wasn’t crying before he could choke the words out.

He pressed a kiss to Jinki’s shoulder before whispering.

“Me too."

 

After the fight, Jonghyun writes pages and pages of music, the first time he’d touched his composition notebook since university. It ranges from loud, fast, angry music to soft, whimsical melodies he’d been fond of in high school. He hadn’t realised how much he had missed it until he’d sat at his desk again, the first time in years.

He titles one of them, _Apologies (in Retrospect)_ and finds his voice thick and husky when he records using his laptop. He wants to give it to Jinki but it doesn’t feel like enough.

He keeps writing, trying to put all of his thoughts and feelings on paper, trying to empty his mind so he can think clearly, but it’s impossible.

He eventually finds himself at the door to Jinki’s study, the outline dark -- as it’s been for days -- laptop in one hand and notebook and pen tucked under the other. He takes a deep breath before trying the handle.

It’s unlocked.

He feels like he hasn’t been in this room for years, when he knows it’d only been a month at most. The air feels dead and still, and everything looks the same as it had when they’d first set it up three years ago.

There’s the electric keyboard hooked up to the computer by the back corner, as well as the speakers they’d installed on the shelves they’d drilled high on the walls. The stack of old composition theory textbooks from university Jinki refuses to throw away are arranged neatly by author on the shelf next to the armchair Jonghyun had insisted on -- one he’d curled up in countless times, content to watch Jinki at his work. There were the signed copies of Jinki’s favourite students’ posters on the walls (though he’d never admit he has favourites) and a few art prints Kibum had gifted for their housewarming.

The room is filled with memories and even empty, feels full with Jinki.

Jonghyun takes a step into the room, and then another, reaching out to run a scale along the keyboard but the keys are heavier than he remembers, and he swallows before turning and leaving, this time locking the door firmly behind him.

 

 _how do you get out of a writing slump?_ Jonghyun messages Jiyong later.

_i didnt know u were still writin_

The next message comes faster. _i dont get slumps lol_

Jonghyun grits his teeth. He forgets that Jiyong’s arrogance onstage isn’t a complete act.

_asshole._

_hahaha_

_soz i lied. do u mean slump or block?_

Jonghyun thinks of the music on loop in his head, the smudged notes on paper and the graphite on his fingers because he can’t get them out fast enough. He hadn’t even noticed that the ever-constant mental music had softened and then muted itself in Jinki’s presence until Jinki had left. It’s so loud now that it drowns out his own thoughts and the only way he can get it to leave is to get it _down_.

_slump. i haven’t written in ages, and everything i do sounds like crap._

_just keep writin. eventually somethin will sound gud_

_usually i ask seunghyun to look @ it if its rly bad. y dont u ask jinki? u guys were always close_

_we had a fight, actually._

_...oh. im sry. wna meet?_

Literally the last they’d seen of each other was graduation, but maybe this is what he needs - someone who speaks the same language as Jinki. Music.

 

One of their assignments had been to pair up and write a song for their partner - something out of the writer’s comfort zone. Jonghyun had been paired with Jiyong, who tended to sport a different hair colour each week and more eyeliner than half the girls in class. In the end, Jonghyun had written some EDM track that gave him a headache if he listened to it more than three times, but it had earned him a high five from Jiyong.

Jinki had been partnered with Zico, who tended to scribble rap lyrics in his notebooks more often than actual notes, but had written Jinki a sweet ballad that Jinki had happily performed.

Jonghyun is pretty sure that’d been the moment he’d fallen from like to love.

(Strangely, or maybe not, Jiyong and Jonghyun had kept in contact after that, even if it only consisted of emails with empty messages, .mp3 attachments and subject lines of “what do you think of this song?” “h3lp m3, dis sux.”)

 

Jiyong’s in the cafe he’d suggested, tucked away in a little alcove that the barista has to point out to Jonghyun.

“Hey,” Jiyong says, his voice rougher and a bit deeper than Jonghyun remembers. “How’s it going?”

“It’s alright,” Jonghyun says slowly. “How’re you?”

Jiyong shrugs. “Same-same.”

Jonghyun’s used to watching Jiyong on TV, part of a rapper duo with Seunghyun, and it’s so weird to see him in person after so long. It feels unreal.

“So tell me what’s going on with you.”

And Jonghyun tells him everything over the last three years, everything that happened between the spaces of the emails and sound files, and how life had gone on. He tells Jiyong how he always knew he was gay, and that he liked Jinki, and when he’d asked Jinki out, Jinki had smiled and said yes.

He tells Jiyong about how they’d moved in together after graduation, because Jinki’s parents still weren’t okay with their queer son, and how Jonghyun’s mother and sister became Jinki’s family instead. How all their friends became one and the same -- how Jinki became a songwriter-producer, and Jonghyun gave up on that dream and became an accounts manager instead because it was what he was good at, even if he didn’t love it.

He tells Jiyong about how they started seeing less and less of each other, how Jinki would be out more times than not and how Jonghyun started staying at the office later and later, and how every time they did talk, it would dissolve into an argument. How their relationship became the personification of dissatisfaction and misplaced anger but still love. (He thinks.)

He talks and talks and talks until the steam disappears from their coffee and Seungri replaces their cold empty cups with new ones, and the lights around the cafe start dimming except for their corner, and Seungri eventually locks up the cash register and just leaves the keys on their table, sharing a glance with Jiyong before leaving.

He tells Jiyong about Minho, and waits for the judgement to land, but Jiyong just sips at his coffee and checks his phone before putting it back on the table face down.

“Are you happy?” Jiyong finally asks when Jonghyun’s throat is dry and raw, and Jonghyun shakes his head. “Would you be happy without Jinki?”

Jonghyun pauses, but shakes his head again.

“Would you be happy _with_ him?”

Jonghyun thinks about the last few months, and then the last year. The silence and darkness and emptiness of their apartment.

He thinks about the year before that, so long ago now, their apartment filled with music and sunshine, weekends spent curled up together watching TV or playing video games or even playing with Roo, rolling a ball around the apartment and laughing as the pup chased it around.

“I used to think yes; now I don’t know.”

Jiyong stares at the table, tapping his fingers idly on the top, hat, sunglasses and face mask long discarded on the chair beside him. His hair is mussed, without any product in it, and, strangely, the five o’clock shadow makes him look younger.

“Seunghyun and I had a,” Jiyong scrunches up his face when he tries to find the right word, "we had a _thing_ for a while, just after university. But we realised it was better for us, especially professionally, but also personally, to just continue as friends.

“Maybe you guys just need time and space. You’ve been together for a while, and maybe you both need space to figure out where you both are now.”

He traces the rim of his cup with his index finger, and Jonghyun watches him. Jiyong sighs and leans back in his chair, looking at Jonghyun through his fringe.

“Sometimes you just have to let it all go, just run away. Take a break from everything you know. Make a new life for yourself, and then come back and see where your old life left you.

“After all, you don’t know what you’ll miss ‘til you’re gone.”

 

Jonghyun buys a one way ticket to Melbourne, forwarding his mum and sister the email confirmation when he’s at the airport waiting to check in. He debates attaching a message, but figures it’ll be enough - they always knew what he needed, even if he didn’t.

He also emails Kibum and Heechul and Jiyong, short messages--

[ _Take care of Jinki for me. I’m sorry I’m not the person you thought I was, or the person I could be. You’re my best friend, and I’ll always love you. (Can you take Roo's stuff over to my mum's if you have time?)_

_I don’t think I can ask for his forgiveness until I can forgive myself. Give my love to Heebum and Hankyung. Love you hyung._

_Took your advice. Thanks. See you in another three years, lol._ ]

\-- that don’t seem enough, but at least they know he’s alive.

He thinks about messaging Minho, but just forwards him the notice of absence he had filed for the day after he’d met up with Jiyong.

Finally, with only an hour before he boards the flight, he takes out some paper and starts writing a letter to Jinki.

He writes and writes and writes, and knows that it’s not enough.

 

In the end, when he lands, he buys the cheesiest postcard he can find, of some cartoon kangaroo with a thumbs up wearing a wide brimmed hat with corks hanging from it posing in front of Uluru, and fills it with only a handful of words before posting it back to Seoul.

 

_I’ll be back._

_I promise._

_J, March 2017_

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from Nell's 'Home'. copious amounts of Nell were listened to while writing this.


End file.
